Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wikileaks

I just needed to point out how interesting all these developments around Wikileaks are. First the website was seen as this great source providing evidence of misuse of power. However, this latest round of leaks has set off a thunderstorm. Amazon and Paypal have stopped providing the website their services as a host and as a provider of funds respectively (see source 2). Its as if their saying, "Publishing secret documents showing exceptional misuse of power: Good. Publishing secret documents showing day-to-day misuse of power: Bad." It could also be attached to the issue that these latest leaks actually hurts government efforts. At the same time, Clinton has to scramble around the globe now to apologize for cables insulting various state leaders even though it can be assumed that every government says similar things about every other government (see source 1).

1) Clinton's Mission: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/05diplo.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

2) Corporate Buisness: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101204/ap_on_hi_te/wikileaks

I also recommend everyone reading Kate's excellent blog about the issue and the subsequent comments at : http://worldpolitics-birthofanotion.blogspot.com/2010/11/wikilinkss-and-free-speech.html?

3 comments:

  1. Hey Jesse great blog post. I would like to add this little bit about information I have been researching on wikileaks from the Wall Street Journal.

    "Both the Federal Reserve’s publication of data on its emergency credit facilities and the WikiLeaks releases of State Department messages could have caused market turmoil if they had been made public in real time. But some financial and political insiders were at least partly informed".

    Wikileaks is a reminder that even supposedly efficient markets can’t reflect unknowns — and that information is always unevenly distributed.

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  2. Jesse and Kate – I agree with Linnea in saying, “great blog posts.”

    So, because it popped up on my homepage, I would like to add to the discussion that Assange was arrested today: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20101205/WikiLeaks/ . Ironically, the charges held against him regard sexual/physical abuse rather than violations of national security.
    WikiLeaks itself reminds me a bit of the Con in Horizons, despite that the Con streams daily like a Facebook newsfeed. Such a system shapes the representation of “showing day-to-day misuse of power,” because “bad” occurs out of the extraordinary. For example, the framed accusation of Laif’s investment in China attracted much attention, but that was because it was simply that, a “framed accusation.” As Linnea noted, “information is always unevenly distributed,” but Laif’s situation was alarming because information was created. Turmoil may be seen to come from unpredictability, much like our discussion on terrorism and other sporadic threats.

    ~ Rachael W.

    P.S. A plethora of info on Wikileaks is archived by the NY Times: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/wikileaks/index.html?inline=nyt-org

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  3. I like the comparison between the Con and Wikileaks. Both are all about the public perception. I think that Assange would say that all he is trying to do is level the playing field between the masses and the bureaucrats. And like the Con, as much as the government may want and try to shut WIkileaks down its going to stay on the web as long as people want it there. Just like how the World Council couldn't shut down the Con, no one can just down WIkileaks. Even if Assange is convicted it will continue because of all the mirror sites people have created.

    And about Assange's arrest: there's a lot of conspiracy theories going about how the sexual misconduct charges were made up to discredit him. Based on his personality I could imagine him doing the stuff he's accused of. However, it's quite interesting how Sweden only started try to get him extradited after these files were published. That doesn't seem coincidental to me.

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